


Curled in the Fetal Position

by coffeeandfeathers



Category: Orbiting Human Circus of the Air (Podcast)
Genre: Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Might be slightly OOC, Missing Scene, Sickfic, There needs to be more fluff for this, julian is a mess, pre-events of podcast, the worst phonetic french you've ever seen in your dang life
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-29
Updated: 2017-01-29
Packaged: 2018-09-20 14:32:46
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,170
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9495896
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/coffeeandfeathers/pseuds/coffeeandfeathers
Summary: Because of his poor nutrition and the fact that he lives in an unheated closet, Julian gets sick and is subsequently treated with kindness. Italics are the narrator.





	

_Curled up in the fetal position on his cot, our janitor can’t sleep. He hasn’t been sleeping or singing or doing much of anything lately for that matter. His lips and the beds of his fingernails are blue and even though his body temperature tops out at 38.7C, he’s trembling._

_Julian?_

“I’m cold. Is the audience watching?”

_Yes._

“Oh.” _His voice, thick and painful, hitches as a series of coughs wrack his body. He clings to the pile of clean rags he’d been using as a pillow and buries his face in it to muffle the sound. It’s three in the morning and he’s still trying not to disturb anyone._

“Are they mad at me?”

_What? No, why would they be?_

“I’m not doing anything.”

_You’re ill._

“I’m not.” _He coughs again into the rags before drawing his arms and legs in close._ “I just need to get warm.”

_The janitor’s closet, like most of the unoccupied rooms in the Eiffel Tower, is unheated and lacks electricity. The dry February air filters through the uninsulated room and Julian wraps his arms around himself. He is wearing nearly every item of clothing that he owns-- threadbare sweatpants, two t-shirts, three pairs of socks, gloves with holes in both the thumbs, a tattered, oversized green pullover that swallows his skinny frame-- but there isn’t nearly enough of him to produce the heat he needs. A few of the saws on the wall hum, concerned. Julian presses his hands against his mouth to warm them. They feel hot and dry against his face._

“I just need to get warm. I just…” _he trails off, swallows hard._

_Julian._

“I just… I need…need to see the platypus,” _he mumbles into his hands, every few words punctuated with a cough. It takes two more hours for him to fall asleep and no platypus, recitating or otherwise, appears._

 

_The next morning, our hungry, exhausted janitor sneaks into the staff shower under the pretense of washing off the layer of grime acquired from work the day before. Instead, he turns the water on as hot as it will go and leans against the shower wall. The water hisses through his hair and his eyes begin to close as a chill runs through his body, when suddenly:_

“JULIAN.” _It’s chief stagehand Leticia Saltier, pounding on the bathroom door._ “Julian, you know you are not supposed to be in zhere!”

_The janitor turns off the water and scrambles into his work clothes, trying to hide the coughs threatening to catch in his throat. He’s still trembling, dripping wet, when he emerges from the shower._

“Sorry, Leticia.” _He won’t look at her, focusing instead on her sensible loafers._

“What iz wrong wis you?”

“Nothing. I don’t know.”

“Look me in ze eye.”

_Julian looks up and Leticia is surprised to see that, instead of his usual trepidatious but eager to please expression, he is wearing a look of absolute and complete misery. He clings to himself, buries a cough in his elbow and when he looks up again, his eyes are gummy and rimmed in purple._

“What happened to you?” _Leticia asks._

“I’m okay. Sorry, Leticia.” _Sniffling, the janitor collects his mop and bucket. Leticia watches him go and later recounts the encounter to Jacques and Pierre in the staff break room._

“Somesing is wrong wiz the janitor.”

“You mean more than usual?” _says Jacques, lighting two cigarettes before passing one to her._

“He iz… em, mush less annoyeeng. He does not look good.”

“Why do you care?” _Pierre chimes in._

“I do not! I juzt do not want heem ruining ze show, yes? Especially if he iz sick.”

“You sound worried,” _says Pierre._

“I do not want to compromise ze health of my crew.”

“Ain’t that sweet,” _says Jacques._ “You gonna tell Mr. Cameron?”

“God, no. Let us keep heem out of ze way.”

 

_In fact, Julian has little interest in the show that night. It takes him almost twice as long to mop the floors as usual and the cafeteria is closed by the time he’s finished. He does not want to retire to his freezing closet, so he climbs into one of the heating ducts not to listen to the show, but because he can’t think of anything better to do._

_Julian? You need to eat.”_

“I’m not hungry.”

_You’ll feel better._

“I’m not hungry.” _He coughs into the duct, the metal cold against his face. His hair is damp with sweat, but he’s still shivering._ “I don’t feel like eating.”

_You need to eat something. We can find you some orange juice or soup. Please eat._

_Julian moans and closes his eyes in response._ “Please. No.”

 

_Below, host John Cameron begins the show without a hitch. He is holding his breath, waiting for Julian to find his way onstage. Julian does not. The orkestrel plays the opening music (sans viola) and Julian is not there. Leticia Saltier assigns Jacques to stage right, Pierre to stage left. Three acts perform and Julian is nowhere to be found. They reach a break for advertisements and John Cameron looks into the wing at Leticia._

“Any trouble?” _he mouths, and Leticia shakes her head._

_The feature presentation plays without interference and as the orkestrel plays the ending music to thunderous applause, John Cameron exits the stage._

“What on earth could he be doing?”

“Does eet matter?”

“I don’t like this. We haven’t had a show without some sort of catastrophe in months. What if he’s found some worse trouble to get into?”

“Iz that possible?”

“I just want to know where he is.”

_After nearly thirty minutes of searching, Jacques encounters the grate from a vent on the floor and a few feet above it, one dirty red high top dangling from the opening._

“Oh my God, he’s dead,” _says Jacques. With some help from Pierre, he pulls on the sneaker until a leg appears, then the other high top, until he’s pulled Julian, barely awake but decidedly alive, from the vent._

“And what do you sink you were doeeng in zhere?” _Leticia asks once she arrives on the scene. Julian rocks back and forth, his arms tight around his body._

“Well?”

“I was… I was trying to get warm. I’m cold.” _Julian coughs at the ground, covers his mouth._ “Did… was the show okay?”

“Yes, it was.” _John Cameron joins the group and Julian looks up at the new voice._

“Sorry, Mr. Cameron.”

“What’s wrong with you?”

 _Julian clamps his jaw shut, swallows hard._ “I don’t know. I’m sorry, Mr. Cameron. I’m sorry, Leticia.”

 _John Cameron, in a rare act of physical kindness, places the back of his hand against Julian’s forehead, then the side of his neck and behind his ear._ “Good God, you’re burning up.” _He wipes his hand on his pants._

“I’m so sorry,” _says Julian, still rocking._ “I’m cold.”

“Let’s get you to bed,” _says John Cameron, but as soon as Julian opens the door to the janitor’s closet, a rush of cold air pours into the hallway. Leticia and Jacques look at each other._

“No,” _says Leticia._ “We are not putting him in zhere. He’ll freeze.”

“He sleeps there already,” _says John Cameron._

“I cannot, in good faith, put heem back in zhere. A dead body is bad for business.”

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” _Julian’s voice is pinched and barely audible and he sways slightly in place before pitching against the wall. John Cameron catches him by the shoulders before he can slide to the floor._

“He’s delirious. There’s a couch in my dressing room. Come on.”

“I’m okay. Please don’t be mad.” _Then, suddenly, someone is lifting him onto their shoulder as easily as if he were made of paper._

“My God, eet’s like carrying a loaf of bread,” _says Leticia, Julian still mumbling over her shoulder._ “Are we going to ze dressing room or not?”

_Julian can't remember the last time he’d been touched so gently. Leticia and Jacques speak quietly above him as they place him on the soft red couch he could never bring himself to sit on._

“Take off your shoes,” _says Jacques, and Julian stoops forward and clumsily unties the laces wrapped around his ankles. When he sits up, a warm weight wraps around his shoulders._

“What are you…” _Julian draws the blanket close to his body and coughs. There is a hand, not unkind, on his head, someone rubbing his back as the coughs subside, a warm Styrofoam cup being pressed into his cold hands._

“What’s this?”

“Tea. Drink it,” _Jacques says_ _, and Julian lifts the cup to his lips. A hot, sweet warmth flows down his sore throat and into his stomach, soothing the aches scattered all over his body. John Cameron presses something small and smooth into Julian’s hand._

“I don’t like to take pills,” _Julian says, examining the white capsule._

“It’s cold medicine. It’ll bring your fever down.”

“Are you sure?” _He doesn't really trust John Cameron and he certainly doesn't trust pills. The whole thing feels like a trick._

“I’m sure.” _John Cameron sits down next to him on the couch._ “Nothing bad is going to happen to you. You have my word.”

_His word. Julian puts the pill on his tongue, swallows another mouthful of tea. There is honey settling at the bottom of the cup. Someone made tea and put honey in it. For him. This has to be a dream._

“Here, Julian.” _This was Leticia, taking the nearly empty cup._ “Lie down. Go to sleep.”

“Here? Why?” _Julian’s tongue still feels thick and useless in his mouth._

“You’re ill. You want to sleep in zat frigid closet?”

“No,” _says Julian._ “Are you going to go away?” _Of everything, the fact that all four of them are still here is the most surprising of all. Jacques and Leticia look at each other._

“We have work to do but I don’t trust him in here by himself,” _says Jacques._

“I’ll stay,” _says John Cameron._ “It’s my couch after all. Now please, for God’s sake, go to sleep.”

_Julian curls up with his head on a pillow nestled against the arm of the couch. The warmth in his stomach is spreading to his fingers and toes and his aching head._

“I’ll be quiet, Mr. Cameron. I swear to God, I’ll be quiet.”

“Go to sleep, Julian.” _A hand ruffles his hair._

“Get some rest, kid. Wait for the platypus.” _Jacques says, and Julian is asleep before they can close the dressing room door behind them. He dreams of a massive, aquatic mammal speaking slow rhymes over him and an hour later, his fever breaks._

 

_Julian doesn’t know how long he sleeps. He’s warm and his work shirt is damp with sweat and as he begins to sit up, John Cameron looks over from his desk._

“You’re awake.”

_At first, Julian doesn’t know where he is, but as his eyes swivel around the room and come to rest on John Cameron’s face, his body goes red with panic._

“Oh my God! Mr. Cameron, I-I’m so sorry! I’m not supposed to be here, I don’t know what happened.” _He tries to get up, but his head swims and John Cameron gets out of his chair. For one terrifying second, Julian thinks Mr. Cameron is going to hit him and he scrambles back against the couch. Instead, John Cameron settles onto the couch next to him._

“It’s all right. We brought you here, remember? You had a fever.”

“I… what?”

“You don’t remember?”

 _Julian searches his brain hard._ “I remember tea. And honey. And someone carrying me like a loaf of bread.”

“That was Leticia. The carrying, not the tea. The tea was Jacques.”

“W-why?”

“Why what?”

“I’m… I’m not supposed to be in here. Why did you bring me here?”

“You were delirious and putting you back in the janitor’s closet was out of the question,” _John Cameron says patiently._

“Oh.” _Julian crosses his legs on the couch and stares at his lap._ “Thank you, Mr. Cameron.”

“Don’t tell the other hands. They’ll all be wanting special treatment.”

“Yes sir.”

“Oh, one more thing. Jacques brought something from the cafeteria.” _John Cameron rises and goes to the mini fridge in the corner of the room, where he produces a white paper bag._ “It’s chicken soup. We reached a consensus that you could use a little meat on your bones.”

“Thank you, Mr. Cameron.”

“Throw it in the microwave and then get back to work. And for God’s sake, buy a space heater for that closet.”

“I… um. Yes sir.” _Julian gets unsteadily to his feet and places the paper bowl of soup into the microwave. It feels good in his hands, better when he leaves the dressing room and eats it slowly it in some unused and mercifully heated room in the Eiffel Tower. He’d forgotten how good it feels to be warm._

“Hey.”

_Yes, Julian?_

“Is the audience still watching?”

_Yes, Julian._

"Do any of them want to buy me a space heater?"


End file.
